


A Day in the Life of a Lalonde Boy

by PFDiva



Series: Theta Kids [2]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Gen, Kidswap, Time shenaningans, Weirdass fuckery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-07
Updated: 2013-04-07
Packaged: 2017-12-07 19:24:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/752124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PFDiva/pseuds/PFDiva
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dave Lalonde and Rose Strider meet Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Day in the Life of a Lalonde Boy

Your name is Dave Lalonde, and you HATE this game.

You hate the fighting, you hate the monsters, you miss your mother, and you want your home to go back to being in Washington, instead of being in this horrible Land of Heat and Clockwork.

You and your friends have been playing the game for three years, and have almost no progress to show for it.

You do quest after quest after quest on your planets and you still have no idea how to win.

And now you're confronted with weird versions of yourself and Rose.

The other Rose is ok, you guess.

Of course she's smart, like yours.

Less chatty and more reserved, but she kinda makes sense.

The other DAVE, however, is just awful.

He circles you like a shark, mocking your clothing, demeanor, and distress while the Roses have a very intense conversation comprised of short sentences and significant glances.

“Dave!”

You instinctively look up at the sound of your name, but you already know it's not your Rose. She has a Texan drawl and tends to sing-song your name, rather than snapping it out.

The other Rose and Dave have a wordless conversation with their eyes before he makes a dismissive gesture at you and oozes over to her side like he planned to be there, anyway.

You go to your Rose's side, warily eying the other Dave.

He's got his head tilted back, inspecting the sky, and the other Rose is too absorbed in yours to pay attention to you.

You don't like being the odd man out, and you poke your Rose to catch her attention.

She bats your hand away to address the other Rose. The Lalonde Rose.

“So, you were just about to tell me how it works out that you two are Rose Lalonde and Dave Strider—god, that's weird to say.”

The other Rose opens her mouth when another Dave Strider appears in the middle of your little group, spinning a pair of turntables that have clearly been set up to move him through time, kinda like your film reel.

You like that idea.

Maybe you'll use Rose's Bro's turntables to make something like that.

But then again, your film works just as well, and it's easy to tell when a doomed extra has come into being.

To your startled surprise, he grabs your shoulder and gestures at his Rose, who obligingly moves in the direction he indicates.

He looks grim.

“All Lalondes to the back of the bus, we're about to have a weapons-grade issue, and we'd like you to survive it.”

The present Dave is watching his future self. Future Dave gestures for current Dave to stand next to your Rose, who is now a few yards in front of you and the Lalonde Rose.

He moves so that he flanks your Rose.

She visibly takes offense.

“If the reason I have to be in the middle is because you think you need to protect me, we're about to have a fight.”

Future Dave sniggers.

“You use daggers.”

“And?”

“We don't.”

He unsheathes a long sword, and his present self follows suit.

She glances between the two and nods approvingly.

“I guess if you're too slow, shitty swords'll do.”

Present Dave laughs, but future Dave doesn't.

He's already heard the joke.

He leans around her to tell the present Dave, “Always remember, HER Dave, not you.”

Suddenly, a gray, tentacled beast appears before them, accompanied by the fluttering edges of a cut roll of film.

It hesitates for only a moment before lunging for the Lalonde Rose with a garbled scream.

It uses its tentacles to try and throw away the Striders, who are in-between it and the Lalonde Rose.

The Rose at your side, quicker on the uptake than you, already has her wands out to protect one Dave, while the other slashes off tentacles that have recoiled off her magic. Instead of falling to the ground like flesh, they dissipate and reform.

Your Rose dives for the main body, and you have to defend her from ow, yes, definitely magical tentacles. Powerful magic, too.

In spite of your combined efforts, the tentacles fly over the Striders, doing their damnedest to kill both you and Rose.

She elbows you and your wand out of the way before snapping “DOWN!”

One Dave dives out of the way. The other shoves your Rose to the ground, protecting her from the wash of powerful magic that floods over their heads.

Where did she learn that kind of stuff?

Dave and Rose are accustomed to fighting together. She even seems to be accustomed to fighting with multiple instances of him.

You'd noticed that she hadn't attempted to protect future Dave, and now it's clear why.

He already knows what to do.

You and your Rose, you know how to fight together well enough, but you have a difficult time with your magic, and you've never really mastered the art of the stable time loop. You tend to figure out what not to do by where you find yourself dead. Jaspersprite tries to help, but even if he's a wizard cat, he's still just a cat.

Rose's Calsprite is worse.

He just laughs.

You were really kinda relieved when he wandered off and didn't come back.

The Dave who's not occupied with your Rose cuts into the main body, then darts away, spilling red blood everywhere and causing the beast to roar in pain.

Your Rose and future Dave have regained your feet, and she's almost inside the thing. She suddenly shouts your name, then flees. You fire a bolt of magic into the space she just vacated, and more blood splatters out.

Present Dave, clearly misunderstanding, runs to her, and they just barely manage to avoid crashing into each other.

Future Dave, instead of fighting, is hanging back, out of the way for some reason.

The monster is bleeding, badly injured, and victory seems nigh. Your Rose slices open a section in the center, revealing a face.

Yours.

It's older, more haggard, with tears streaming down the ash-gray skin, but it's absolutely yours.

Your Rose drops her daggers to clamp both hands to her mouth, and present Dave freezes. Future Dave is conveniently at your Rose's side, and he drags her out of the way as the....other you advances, hell-bent on killing the Lalonde Rose.

The whole time you've been fighting, he's been screaming, and now you understand what he's saying.

You don't want to.

“WHAT DID YOU THINK WOULD HAPPEN IF YOU TOLD US THAT KIND OF THING?!”

“I don't know.”

The Lalonde Rose easily turns back his attacks as she answers.

You can hear your Rose vomiting.

“SHE DIED TO PROVE YOU WRONG AND THEY STOLE HER WHEN SHE WOKE UP! THEY STOLE HER FROM US!!!”

“I didn't know she'd do that.”

“THEY PROMISED THEY'D GIVE HER BACK IF I LISTENED, BUT SHE WAS ALREADY DEAD!!”

“They lie.”

“THEY LIED TO ME!!”

“I know.”

“THEY LIED TO ME!!!”

“I'm so sorry.”

“I'M THE ONLY ONE WHO MADE IT THIS FAR!”

“There was no way I could know this would happen.”

“I CAN'T HAVE A JUST DEATH WITH NOTHING LEFT TO FIGHT!!”

“I know.”

“I CAN'T HAVE A HEROIC DEATH WITH NOONE TO PROTECT!”

Your future self looms over both you and the Lalonde Rose, and she's crying for you. For him? His film was cut. He's already doomed.

The Daves, moving in sync, slice him into pieces, and both the tentacles and the magic fall away as if they'd never been, leaving only an older version of you in the same bright red garb the Strider Daves wear.

He collapses to his knees, hands on the ground and head bowed, panting for breath, bleeding profusely, and weeping piteously. You only feel a little guilty for hoping his world is ending, because otherwise, you will become him.

“Rose,” he cries, “Rose, why did you go to them?”

Your Rose is pale as she shuffles around to crouch in front of him.

“I don't know why, Davey. I thought it was the right thing, I guess.”

He throws himself into her arms.

“We needed you, Rose. You were our leader.”

She shushes him, rocking him back and forth as he bleeds all over her.

“I needed you, Rose. She was right. I wasn't strong enough.”

“Shutit, you. You're plenty strong.”

“But not in the right WAY—!”

Anything else he has to say is cut off with his head by one of the Daves.

You watch Rose's face convulse as his head oh-so-slowly rolls off his body and lands on the ground with a wet noise.

The guilty Dave is looking at his counterpart, not her, “And now's the time to go back.”

The other Dave nods, then pulls out his turntables and disappears into the past. The leftover Dave bears the brunt of your Rose's rage.

“Why did you DO that?! HOW COULD YOU?!”

He's quiet when he speaks.

“He was already doomed. I think I know what he was about to tell you, and he's already had to go through whatever he endured once over that knowledge. Do you want to make him go through it again?”

You hesitate uncertainly as the other Dave moves to talk to his Rose.

“What he said--”

“--noone to protect, yes.”

“Does that mean--?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Is that what happens when--?”

“It seems so.”

“Then we can't tell them--”

“I know.”

“What's going on?”

Your voice is quiet and kinda whimpery, and you want to crawl into a hole when they both fix you with a serious, intense look.

Rose softens first.

“You've always been awake on Derse, right?”

You nod.

“So you've heard the voices from beyond the Furthest Ring?”

You nod again, and wish you could shake your head.

Every time you go to sleep, you hear the voices.

When you daydream too deeply, you hear the voices.

Slippery, sliding, horrible voices that whisper horrible prophecies of the future.

They terrify you, but you can't make them go away.

“We call them horrorterrors, or the zoologically dubious, and while they can grant you great power, they can also destroy you with their power if you are unprepared.”

“What does that have to do with this?”

Your Rose has finally managed to recover herself enough to rejoin the conversation. She wraps a proprietary arm around your waist, pulling you close against her side. Her grip bruises your sides and makes it difficult to breathe, but you don't want to smell the blood on her clothes, anyway, and you need the reassurance as much as she does.

“That Dave Lalonde was consumed by their power,” explains the other Rose, “It's happened to me once, so I recognized the symptoms. I wasn't able to speak properly, but he's always been awake.”

Your Rose butts in.

“But why did he come after you and not your Dave? Or mine? Or me?”

“Noone likes to blame themselves or people they care about for things going badly. I'm you enough to prompt the emotional reaction, and not you enough to blame.”

“So does this mean you can't tell us what's going on, Lalonde?”

She shakes her head sadly.

“No. We just faced the consequences of me telling you.”

Your Rose nods, and the other pair slowly walk away.

Once they have gone, Rose looks at you.

“How do you wake up on Derse?”

You shake your head.

“I've always been awake. I don't know how to wake you up.”

“Think Egbert could help?”

“She's always been awake, too, but she says Prospit's a lot nicer than Derse. No monster voices. She doesn't know how to do it, either, or she would have woken John already.”

“Damn. I bet I could take those sons of bitches.”

Because of your future self, you both know that she's wrong, but you don't protest her bravado.

You just wrap your arm around her, too.


End file.
